life in the half-light...

in throes of early morning slumber, curled in a dream where
sunrise remains frozen under dyslexic clouds...
he hovers momentarily, indistinctly outlined
where earth and eternity swell in anxious anticipation...
she remains tensed, swallowing hard––waiting for his eyes to descend,
acknowledging her existence...to beckon her forward...
frightened this day she hastens toward him without sanction, soon realizing
he retreats as she advances––never to reach that elusive ombre silhoutte...

defeated, the sun erupts, blistering her flesh
absorbing all the moisture from her dream...
like fragile glass inside a sonic boom he shatters abruptly, scattering to the wind...
in the end she never touches him...
holding onto shards of longing and regret, her eyes open on another
cardboard day where images live and die
on flickering celluloid frames of timid imagination, peeking at the real world
behind blinds and curtains...

god punished this rapacious girl who trailed her men in free verse,
serving words of longing upon a liquid platter...
inside a room where flesh dissolves but rampant desire multipies
to be scaled and parsed into tiny cells chaining her to the east wind...
forever denying the moment he backed away;
understanding the meaning behind her inverted reality...
she remains transfixed sending missives to a lover who ceased to exist once she
invited him into her room without a view...

life in the half-light
by ja allen
prism gates

after life...

i seek sanctuary under poison oak leaves beneath an august moon
as errant whistles and cat-calls rebound
over tremulous planks reminding me i do not belong here
where young women strut self-assured, robust,
stuffed with domestic grain, wild oats and cherry blossoms,
fragrant in the wind, poised on the bow,
anticipating the lure of bigger things...

i tremble thrust in the depths of dreams,
in the cotton tail dust of life whipped and beaten down
by winds assaulting the safe shore...
where i once walked naked and unafraid
in the early morning before loons
finished the last encore of their melancholy melody,
when life was free of lines and shadows...

abandoned by perfectionists, rejected by sensual men,
repelled by those hawking immortality,
i fled instead to cold, deep waters where the bottom remained hidden
as secrets of past truth seekers adhered
like barnacles to the underside of an ever-receding point...
i sucked fear like air through a straw straight into my heart
praying that deadly air bubbles not burst my remaining reason...

numb, in time, i crawled onto sands of shifting succor
within rigidly defined pockets where i sifted the tiny bones
of my unfulfilled promise...
sirens of longing shrieked in the distance begging me to
settle down with old dreams and lost lovers...
reeking of mildewed letters and rancid verse;
i re-licked memories of dried kisses and caked longing...

as i rejected the slow descent into mossy memory, i exchanged vortex
for vital shores, subsisting yet in shadows,
in shallows, recycling life through a pipeline, unseen and untouched...
voices that stimulated wonder brokered breathless anticipation,
but unable to comprehend queries, to sense the edge of spiny worlds,
where lust overpowers love, where ego stifles egression,
i overrode rules of engagement, suffering derision by masters...

flipped onto my back to see if i could right myself...
i wrestled to avoid the manic pull of mainstream recalling its burdensome, untenable posture of surrender...now eternally estranged
i whisper words to madmen, strangers in the dead of night,
listening closely for the next clue to my retooled reality...
massaging the text, the fabric of duplicity that allows my
existence inside a world that passed me by...

after life...
by ja allen
prism gates

je suis...

an after-thought at the end of the day
once important matters are put to rest...
an image just outside visional range
captured out of the corner of an eye...

a glimpse recalled as the cat stretches and settles at the
foot of the bed ready for slumber...
circling three times before she finally
settles within the recesses of white cotton...
recognizing serenity has overtaken conquest
and time for aggression has ceased...

a fleeting recollection as darkness descends,
after thanking God for another day...
praying for promises yet to be granted allotting peace
in the aftermath of longing...
before the thought dies and memory shuts down...

do only the promises whispered in your ear or
written in blood matter?
what of those unspoken devotions delivered to you
as acts of kindness and gentle entreaties...
what of tender pleas breathed into silent pillows?
an undercurrent of sighs and silent tears...

the shudder of understanding as the light blinks out
with only shards of darkness to nestle against...
as the wind pesters the awning
and the terrible moon shadows the barren path...
the universal sound reverberates in the silkened bonds
that could not hold against indifference...

her ancient cries wailed, ripped from her soul into the wind,
oh god, oh god, please, let him love me...
blown back into cold corners where no arms could reach,
mocking modular distress arranged in musical encores,
sung over and over again as her head rocks back and forth
in her nightly dance of denial suborned in darkness,

as she begins to claw at the night demanding succor from pain
staring down the ignoble past leading her here
where she pays for impossible sins against imagined hosts
as love is forbidden again and again;

she holds the edge another moment before she sets it down
and shuts the drawer praying for a word, a gesture...
a patch of warmth to bring satisfaction in solitude once again....
the night denies her request for solace,
the emptiness permeates her cover and her blood turns cold
as it courses her mind one last time...

je suis by ja allen
prism gates

subliminal rejection

you ate my heart from the inside out
until there was nothing left
but a shell, a vessel filled with emptiness;
once it was overflowing with love for you...
spilling over with unrestrained excess;
but the depth of my longing was not enough for you
to return my love because you
observed flaws and shortcomings
in my clover-leafed adoration...
you bore into the suspect center
letting distrust eat the sensuous fiber away
until nothing remained but
tenuous tenderness and hesitant warmth...

the end of desire breeds desperation ––
the astonished turn of love
into subserviency and clinical conversation
about weather and duties...
fearing free flowing repartee that allowed
my timid soul to soar with passion’s promise;
for you gave me so much hope that love
would turn to me at last and grant me
satisfaction and fulfillment in the arms of the one
i had always sought...

it grew crystal clear, however, that it could never be you;
because you would never play the fool
for anyone as naive as me
–– as uninitiated as me...
as unworldly as me –– because i did not recognize
the impediment of my innocence...
one so sheltered could never ignite a fire in you...
could never bring you to accustomed heights.
shy, timid souls must learn to shiver alone,
sheltered beneath the stares of sharks
circling in the murky waters of consensus...

hiding now beneath the surface i watch you circle,
waiting for me to surface so you might
continue your practiced postures wondering
if your perceptions were right again...
as they have always been...for in your world there
are no second chances...
in my world there is no hope for one
who has never learned how to replenish an empty heart....

ja allen
prism gates

who's sorry now?

with a crack, the whip backlashes,
ripping the pale flesh of dawn...
so comes the sun, a boil, raw and bleeding
to remind me –– it has come to pass...
the relapse of the sinner breeds contempt,
drifting lust from city to town;
on his back is power –– the tower of the watcher...
his eye on the sun.

an incredible grasp of heaven...
no wonder he smirks
as i work to keep ahead, just one horizon at a time.
the irony of his tongue
bewilders my run up the quick grass of summer;
too hot for retreat,
my feet blur as i watch the orb
grow malignant in my dreams...

the steady rhythm of time clops behind,
always sure...
i've known him deep inside my secret desire...
never escaping the shadows of his long torso ––
always one cloud behind...
no place to run to ––
just a place to escape from,
the soul of my own footsteps;

i tread the decadence of smiles i knew
were too old,
words too rooted in innuendo, rotten silence...
god, has no one left yesterday behind?
stale and impatient for this pursuer to catch me,
i turn and shout obscenities to the acrid wind...
my breath is blown back in my face;
laughter rolls from the corners where no man has known me...

in anger, i turn to discover the pale bird i held
was crushed under my unthinking foot...
the watcher has past me by
and now i follow the trail of his ass
along the narrow pass
where no one sees me or hears
my last whimper of protest...

ja allen
soliloquies
who's sorry now?